Thursday, March 28, 2013

Polysix - Aftertouch and Portamento Demo

This last week has been an exciting time for my pursuit of adding aftertouch to my Korg Polysix. As you know by now, I *really* want aftertouch vibrato on my Polysix...so a while back, I ordered a bunch of parts and dived in. I've been posting about my progress. In my last post, I described the electronics elements that I used to implement the arbitrary pitch bending that would allow for my aftertouch-driven vibrato. As a bonus, having arbitrary pitch control also enabled me to add portamento to my Polysix, which is another effect that I absolutely love. So, without further ado, now that I've put her back together, here's my first demo of what she can do...

How did I make this happen? Well, the block diagram below shows the elements. I bought an aftertouch-enabled Fatar keybed from Keyparts UK. I bought their custom keyscanner, too, which scans the keybed and generates MIDI messages. I then use an Arduino Mega to parse the MIDI messages and to drive the Polysix's electronics. It interfaces with the Polysix by replacing the Intel 8049 microprocessor that is at the heart of the Polysix's "Key Assigner" circuit. This this digital interface, I can control what note they Polysix is sounding. To get the arbitrary pitch bending for the aftertouch vibrato and for the portamento, I generate an analog pitch control voltage (CV) using a digital-to-analog converter (DAC) from Adafruit. I inject that signal at a pitch CV summing node that it already built into the Polysix. After writing a bunch of code to run on the Arduino and after debugging these hardware elements, she works pretty well!

How I'm Implementing Aftertouch and Portamento

For a user interface, I'll eventually need to add some switches and knobs to the front panel of the Polysix. For the moment, though, I've chosen to re-purpose the knob and switches that are supposed to be used to control the arpeggiator. Since these particular elements are scanned by the Polysix's Key Assigner, and since I just replaced the Key Assigner with my Arduino, I now have total control over these particular user interface elements...so, I can make them do whatever I want. For the moment, I'm going to use them for my aftertouch and portamento.

As you can see in the image below, I chose to make the arpeggiator "Speed" knob control my software LFO, which is driving my aftertouch vibrato. The blinking of the LED still works to show the speed of my aftertouch vibrato! I then use the arpeggiator "Range" switch to set the sensitivity of the aftertouch response. Portamento is activated or deactivated using the "Latch" switch, while the amount of portamento is set using the "Arpeggiator Mode" switch. Now I'm not saying that this is an intuitive user interface, but it sure is nice being able to use these elements to control my new features without having to cut into my Polysix panel.

Re-purposing the Arpeggiator Controls for Use with my Aftertouch Vibrato and my Portamento

So, I'm pretty excited about how she's working. There are certainly more tweaks and adjustments to make, but the basics are all in place. In fact, now that it's working, I don't seem to spend any time tweaking the electronics anymore...I just spend all my time playing. I guess that's kinda the point, though. :)

4 comments:

Hi there I would like to build an arduino Dac for portamento on my polysix is there any way I can get the program data for the arduino mega from you? I don't care to much for implementing the aftertouch as it requires a new keybed and I have already used your info to add control to the detune spread in unison mode and it sounds fantastic. I just have to have the portamento and midi in, if its not to much trouble for the program data I would really appreciate it. Thanks for publishing all this its very useful information.

I think that it wasn't yet a full product when I purchased it from them...I think that the keyscanner was just in Beta. If you're unable to get it, perhaps they decided not to pursue it any further. That's a bummer because it was a really great little product. Sorry.